


Life After

by TimConwaysElephantStory



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/M, Season 1 and 2 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 19:18:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10367562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimConwaysElephantStory/pseuds/TimConwaysElephantStory
Summary: Paul counts even though they don't count.





	

They make it to almost fourteen months.

Paul counts even though _they_ don’t count. Two at the end of Joe Miller’s trial, when Broadchurch is a wasp’s nest of incrimination and pain. Five when things finally seem to settle, if not into normality itself, then into a routine that could eventually become normality. He spends their eighth solo at a barbecue the Latimers throw to celebrate Ellie’s return to work as a Broadchurch DS.

He takes Becca out at a year to the day and thinks she probably knows what he’s doing and that, in leaving it unacknowledged, she’s approving. Dinner is nothing extravagant; just a little place in Weymouth with decent food. The whole thing is a big step up by virtue of not being the Trader’s. 

They don’t talk about anything of real consequence. Becca’s busy season is coming to a close, and she’s simultaneously relieved and worried. Less of the demanding guests show up in winter but only because there are less guests in general. Paul’s considering refereeing soccer at the high school because they are lacking in volunteers and recently he’s finding too many empty hours in his day.

The evening is nice. He treasures the memory later. Not because the next two months aren’t as pleasant, but because it was one of the few times he let himself imagine that maybe this could last. Banalities and day-to-day intrigue over food with someone he can laugh with are worth something, he thinks.

In the end it’s little more than wishful thinking.

The bar is closed on an outwardly normal Thursday. Becca wipes down the tables and checks the stock while Paul sits on a stool typing up emails on his tired laptop. They’re quiet, but not unpleasantly so. He doesn’t notice her finish cleaning until she hops up on the stool beside his and takes a long swig of cider. He hits send and closes the computer.

Becca’s facing forward, not meeting his eye, and it’s the first hint that something is off. Paul stares in the same direction and waits. 

“So I’m just going to throw this out there because I don’t know how to bring it up naturally,” she begins, “I’ve been thinking about leaving Broadchurch. Pretty much decided on it, actually."

Paul doesn’t react outwardly. His thoughts race for a good response but there doesn’t seem to be one. He settles on “Oh.”

“I’ve had feelers out about the hotel for a while and got an offer last week. It’s average, but I won’t be any worse off than when I got here and…” Becca turns to face him; “I’m ready for something new.”

“Right. So, when? Where?” he knows he sounds dense but finds his brain is stuck in a sort of loop. A song plays on the radio in reception that’s poppy and familiar and really fucking annoying right now.

Becca picks at the label on her bottle. “Home for a while, and then the US. I’ve got some family there who’re going to help me get set up. In a few weeks everything’ll be wrapped up.”

They’re silent again. Paul’s clueless as to what to say. ‘Don’t’ would make him an arse, ‘Good for you’ is insincere and he’s not entirely sure he wants the answer to ‘Why?’

In the end she answers the last one without it being asked. “There’s nothing wrong with me and you, or with Broadchurch, it’s just time to move on.”

“What does that mean?” he waves his hand in the air dismissively, “I mean I know what it means but that’s the kind of thing you say when you don’t want to tell someone what’s really going on.”

“Maybe if you’re you, but for me it’s just that- It’s just time. Shit, if you were anyone else I’d ask you to come with me.”

“Then why-” Paul stops when he meets Becca’s eyes. He’s come to know her well enough to understand there _is_ more to this. She’s asking him to come while ostensibly not giving him a choice because she already knows what his answer will be. She probably knew before he’d even considered the question. In this respect they are two very different people; one who’s never been entirely comfortable with permanence and one who needs it to function. He finds it suddenly difficult to be bitter about not being enough to keep her here when she isn’t enough to make him leave.

Becca takes his hands in hers. “I’m sorry,” she says.

“Me too.”

Sorry in this moment means very little. People, Paul thinks, only apologise for something they are currently doing if they’re not sorry enough to stop. There is a mutual acceptance between them, though. She has made the decision to go and he has made one not to follow.

Which of them moves first is unclear. It’s hard to tell who is kissing and who is being kissed. Either way their movements are fervent, bordering on rough but never becoming so. Becca shifts off her stool and Paul pulls her forward, wrapping his arms around her until they are tight against each other. Knowing their time is now limited makes what was familiar uncertain again. There is a sudden urgency to everything they do that is both stirring and unsettling. He can taste the cider in her mouth and has to drown his desire for a drink in his desire for her.

* * *

A strange, suspended fortnight follows.

Broadchurch, however, carries on turning around Paul and Becca, as if they exist in their own tiny pocket of time. They do not progress or regress. They are not nothing but there is an end date to whatever they are that makes it indefinable. He still frequents the Trader’s, even as it’s shined up and signed over. Their routine is frozen right up until it shatters.

Paul drives Becca to Southampton for her flight. Conversation is sparse and shallow, perhaps because there are things left unsaid but more likely because there is nothing left to say. He sees her off at the gate, where they kiss goodbye but never say the word. There is a solitary moment, as she walks through the gate, when he considers going after her.

Instead he drives back to Broadchurch and leaves the car at Lucy Stevens’. Olly, who is in the process of moving away for a new job, had been thrilled to get it so cheap.

After she’s gone Paul slowly begins to feel lost. His life never revolved around Becca but has emptied without her. There is the church, which is losing patrons by the week. There are the people of Broadchurch, who haven’t needed him in a long time. There is very little else now.

After, at its core, is made up of services, of keeping up the church, of helping out at the school and of not walking by the hotel. It is made up of dinners alone and worsening insomnia. He counsels Mark and Beth right up until their separation and feels like a failure.

For a time he contemplates trying to forget. Going back to before would be so much easier, if such a thing was possible. Selective amnesia is usually one of his strong suits. It was a necessary skill after having made some significant mistakes in the past. Unfortunately there are very few elements of Broadchurch life that are not intrinsically linked with all the others. Trying to return to before Becca means going back to before they threw Joe out of town, before the trial, before Jack and before Daniel Latimer. All his memories of the last few years have Becca Fisher permeating them, saturating them. The appeal of skipping town and leaving it all behind becomes clearer, but not clear enough.

For Paul Coates, the only way forward, challenging though it may be, is to let go of life before and begin to build a life after.

**Author's Note:**

> Shamelessly self-indulgent, this one. Felt the need to publish before 3x04 in case we ever actually find out what happened to Becca Fisher. Of course that's assuming they haven't mentioned it offhand in the show while I wasn't paying attention, in which case consider this AU. Sort of in the same post S2 speculative universe as my Hardy drabble.


End file.
